Fideism is the view that truth in religion is ultimately based on faith rather than on reasoning or evidence. This claim has been presented in many forms by theologians from St. Paul to contemporary neoorthodox, antirationalist writers, usually as a way of asserting that the fundamental tenets of religion cannot be established by proofs or by empirical evidence but must be accepted on faith. Some forms of fideism denigrate or deny the value of reason and science, and these amount to a kind of irrationalism, as indicated in David Hume's ironic statement at the end of his essay "Of Miracles":

[The] Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even to this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without them. Mere reason is not sufficient to convince us of its veracity; and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious...